L’écriture dans “Le Lambeau” de Philippe Lançon est-elle témoignage “pharmakon” ou salut existentiel ?

Abstract

On January 7th 2015, Philippe Lançon, a journalist at “Libération” and at “Charlie Hebdo” attends the newspaper’s premises, when the islamist terrorists attack. The killers’bullets tear his jaws off, severely injure his arms, make his existence capsize, but he survives. In his novel “Le Lambeau”, he tells the story of a mental as well as physical reconstruction, sketching the chronology of his days in various hospitals, depicting the visitors who make his days brighter and the varied shades of his consciousness. Is his writing, a mere testimony of a tragical experiment, the chronicles of a journalist who witnesses how one comes back to life? Or is it a “pharmakon”, a poison within a remedy, which puts back to life things past and gone, as a way of healing? Or shall we give a spiritual significance to this writing, so haunted by Proust that it parodies his style and shows literature as a means of salvation?